IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/agreko/269420.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Minimum Economic Farm Size: A Case Study of the Smallholder Tea Sub-Section in Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Kavoi, M. M.
  • Owuor, P. O.
  • Siele, D. K.

Abstract

The average area under tea in the smallholder sub-sector is approximately 0.27 ha. The population pressure in the tea growing districts is quite high compared to the neighbouring districts without the enterprise. The robust population growth in tea growing zones translates into continued sub-division of tea farms to school leavers who cannot get alternative employment in other sectors of the economy. This scenario is a potential threat to the future of the smallholder tea production in Kenya. The problem of continued sub-division of tea farms has degenerated into what has been termed as "uneconomic tea farm sizes". The objective of this study was to determine the optimal economic number of bushes a tea farm should have below which it would be referred to as "uneconomic tea farm size." A profit function model was fitted on 259 smallholder farms. It is concluded that all tea farms in these subsets are more successful in responding to the set of prices they face (Price efficiency) and /or because they have higher quantities of fixed factors of production, including entrepreneurship (technical efficiency).

Suggested Citation

  • Kavoi, M. M. & Owuor, P. O. & Siele, D. K., 2001. "Minimum Economic Farm Size: A Case Study of the Smallholder Tea Sub-Section in Kenya," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 40(3), September.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:agreko:269420
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.269420
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/269420/files/06-%20Kavoi.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/269420/files/06-%20Kavoi.pdf?subformat=pdfa
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.269420?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:agreko:269420. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeasaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.